This blog will be about whatever suits my fancy. Chances are, it will concentrate on media misrepresentations of the American "Black community", Black politics, politics in general, and whatever else I want to mentally masturbate about.

Tesha Legore, a single mother whose daughter, Jadaica Godfrey, 8, attends St. Gabriel School in Northwest with a voucher, said she wanted to see D.C. public schools improved.

"But I'm not going to wait on them to get [the school system] together," said Ms. Legore, 30. "I want the best for my daughter. From when Jadaica was born, I knew I wanted her education to be solid, but from an income basis, I knew I wouldn't be able to afford it."

Jadaica is vivacious. On a recent afternoon, she bounced around the cheerful house, decorated mostly in pink, that she shares with her mother and grandmother in Northeast. She's bright, her mother says, and in public school, she breezed through without any problems.

Only after Jadaica switched to private school did her mother realize she had problems in reading and math. Jadaica's teacher called Ms. Legore to tell her what her daughter needed to work on at home, she said. Now she works with Jadaica to make sure she has a solid foundation in the essentials.

"I think this school has been very beneficial," she said.

Gregory M. Cork, president and chief executive officer of the Washington Scholarship Fund, said vouchers are part of a larger effort to reform D.C. education.

"We support better D.C. public schools and better charter schools," said Mr. Cork, whose children attend public schools in Northwest. "What parents need are options. The fact that whether kids deserve an option has become a political football is just regrettable."

No one knows exactly how many students are still without a school, but
indicators show that the annual last-ditch scramble for a seat at a
school of choice is in high gear:

• Some 28,217 students remain on waiting lists to get into Los
Angeles Unified School District's prized magnet schools, which are
special programs established to promote integration.

• Popular charter schools — free, public schools run independently of
the school district — are mostly oversubscribed: The Inner City
Education Foundation, which operates the View Park charter schools,
pegs its waiting list at more than 5,000.

• The season for admission into popular private schools is long past,
but parents are hoping to find an opening, perhaps at a school looking
for a particular demographic to round out its student body.

So how does a parent get into this predicament? Some simply waited too
long. Others have diligently researched and visited schools, applied on
time but lost admission lotteries or discovered they lack sufficient
"priority points" to gain admittance into magnet schools. Some have
refused to give up on a private school slot.

By law, every child is ensured a spot in a public school. But for this
mass of families, the neighborhood school typically is not the
preferred choice.

The Los Angeles school district's magnet office tries to help. So does
its open enrollment office. A call to a school — public or private —
can uncover unexpected openings; informal parent networks also
accumulate information. Parents often find that the local public school
is better than first presumed, or has a special and worthy program
within the larger campus that they can settle on.

Then there are parents who lie to get into a school, which can backfire if a school investigates.

"It was really difficult when my daughter didn't get a sibling permit"
for an in-demand Westside school, said Kerry Allen. "Because I know
families who used false addresses."

Other parents have worn out shoe leather, spent evenings poring over test scores and attended lotteries.

...

But the summer search transcends Anglo angst. Minority parents also are looking for options.

There is a waiting list of more than 300 minority students who
have signed up to be bused to the Westside or west San Fernando Valley.
And, charter schools that have opened in working-class, black or Latino
neighborhoods have been flooded with applications.

"We have a whole lot of issues in the African American community: What
we face with young males — the gang issues," said Joanne Driver-Jordan,
a respiratory therapist who lives in the Hyde Park area. "But education
is a high priority in the list of priorities — not wanting your child
to go to a school that is racially divided, where one race hates the
other. And your child is trying to do academics in that setting?"

If "anti-intellectualism" is strong in the Black community, how do you resolve the actions of the parents in these articles and the fact that both articles indicate a "back log" for the options available?

Tesha Legore, a single mother whose daughter, Jadaica Godfrey, 8, attends St. Gabriel School in Northwest with a voucher, said she wanted to see D.C. public schools improved.

"But I'm not going to wait on them to get [the school system] together," said Ms. Legore, 30. "I want the best for my daughter. From when Jadaica was born, I knew I wanted her education to be solid, but from an income basis, I knew I wouldn't be able to afford it."

Jadaica is vivacious. On a recent afternoon, she bounced around the cheerful house, decorated mostly in pink, that she shares with her mother and grandmother in Northeast. She's bright, her mother says, and in public school, she breezed through without any problems.

Only after Jadaica switched to private school did her mother realize she had problems in reading and math. Jadaica's teacher called Ms. Legore to tell her what her daughter needed to work on at home, she said. Now she works with Jadaica to make sure she has a solid foundation in the essentials.

"I think this school has been very beneficial," she said.

Gregory M. Cork, president and chief executive officer of the Washington Scholarship Fund, said vouchers are part of a larger effort to reform D.C. education.

"We support better D.C. public schools and better charter schools," said Mr. Cork, whose children attend public schools in Northwest. "What parents need are options. The fact that whether kids deserve an option has become a political football is just regrettable."

No one knows exactly how many students are still without a school, but
indicators show that the annual last-ditch scramble for a seat at a
school of choice is in high gear:

• Some 28,217 students remain on waiting lists to get into Los
Angeles Unified School District's prized magnet schools, which are
special programs established to promote integration.

• Popular charter schools — free, public schools run independently of
the school district — are mostly oversubscribed: The Inner City
Education Foundation, which operates the View Park charter schools,
pegs its waiting list at more than 5,000.

• The season for admission into popular private schools is long past,
but parents are hoping to find an opening, perhaps at a school looking
for a particular demographic to round out its student body.

So how does a parent get into this predicament? Some simply waited too
long. Others have diligently researched and visited schools, applied on
time but lost admission lotteries or discovered they lack sufficient
"priority points" to gain admittance into magnet schools. Some have
refused to give up on a private school slot.

By law, every child is ensured a spot in a public school. But for this
mass of families, the neighborhood school typically is not the
preferred choice.

The Los Angeles school district's magnet office tries to help. So does
its open enrollment office. A call to a school — public or private —
can uncover unexpected openings; informal parent networks also
accumulate information. Parents often find that the local public school
is better than first presumed, or has a special and worthy program
within the larger campus that they can settle on.

Then there are parents who lie to get into a school, which can backfire if a school investigates.

"It was really difficult when my daughter didn't get a sibling permit"
for an in-demand Westside school, said Kerry Allen. "Because I know
families who used false addresses."

Other parents have worn out shoe leather, spent evenings poring over test scores and attended lotteries.

...

But the summer search transcends Anglo angst. Minority parents also are looking for options.

There is a waiting list of more than 300 minority students who
have signed up to be bused to the Westside or west San Fernando Valley.
And, charter schools that have opened in working-class, black or Latino
neighborhoods have been flooded with applications.

"We have a whole lot of issues in the African American community: What
we face with young males — the gang issues," said Joanne Driver-Jordan,
a respiratory therapist who lives in the Hyde Park area. "But education
is a high priority in the list of priorities — not wanting your child
to go to a school that is racially divided, where one race hates the
other. And your child is trying to do academics in that setting?"

If "anti-intellectualism" is strong in the Black community, how do you resolve the actions of the parents in these articles and the fact that both articles indicate a "back log" for the options available?